1. Field
The embodiments described below relate to image signal processing and, more specifically, to efficient detection and/or enhancement of certain image regions.
2. Description
Conventional medical imaging systems capture Electro-Physiological (EP) signals and display the EP signals on system monitors. FIG. 1 includes image 100 of a displayed EP signal. Image 100 includes waveform region 110, information area 120 and control buttons 130. Image 100 is generated based on a received digital video signal and is made up of image pixels. Each image pixel is associated with a color value (e.g., an 8-bit value for each of Red, Green and Blue components).
To ensure conformance between image 100 and the monitor on which it will be displayed, the received digital video signal is scaled prior to display of image 100. Scaling (e.g., using a bi-cubic scaling algorithm) reduces the brightness of the EP signals within waveform region 110 because the scaling operation incorporates adjacent dark pixels into the computation of the scaled waveform pixels. More specifically, the brightness of the waveform pixels is reduced because the black background of waveform region 110 is provided weight in the computation of the scaled waveform pixels.
Accordingly, conventional systems for scaling EP signals result in dark and difficult-to-see signals. Enhancement functions are known, but such functions produce distortion within the non-waveform regions of the resulting image.